Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Under the Dome, Season 2, Episode 10: The Fall

Jim has just seen Pauline – drama and ructions. Pauline
convinces him she’s real and not just a Dome illusion to which Jim accuses her
of destroying Junior by faking her death

More angst in her painting shack that Jim has kept
unchanged as a kind of shrine to her. She tells him everything from Zenith and
he declares that the Dome has made him into a new, better man and now the Dome
has brought her back to him. Praise the Dome and Jim it’s messiah!

Rebecca is trying to get Julia to pay attention to the
latest Dome drama (the leaves on the trees are turning and it’s cold – but it’s
supposed to be the middle of summer) when Julia sees Barbie, alive, well and
inside the Dome. Barbie gives them a quick recap of his many adventures.
Everyone seems… oddly wary about GETTING OUT!

Julia declares how she’s always believed the Dome is
there to protect them while Barbie has doubts – pointing out that nothing the
Dome has ever done has been remotely positive. Julia still has doubts about leaving
since Lyle didn’t make it back. Barbie sees no reason not to give up the egg
and they hammer out a plan – Julia goes first, making them agree to let the
whole town go. The town leaves, then Barbie comes through with the egg.

Norrie and Joe realise the egg is gone and naturally –
and correctly – suspect Melanie.

Melanie and Junior are all bonding and she makes a silly
joke about Junior locking her in the bomb shelter. Under the Dome you’re not cute, you’re not clever. Angie’s
bloodstained ghost drops in to warn Junior not to follow his heart. Ooookay then

Sam catches up with Melanie and assures her that he
totally didn’t kill her the first time, it was Lyle (the conveniently missing
scapegoat) and he totally wish they hadn’t dumped her body in a shallow grave.
Bygones?

She then joins Barbie and Julia – but refuses to give up the egg to their
dubious plan to get everyone out. Barbie does ask her about her memories though
– if she remembers him as a small child. Putting together memories they realise
that Barbie’s dad was with Melanie’s mother before meeting Barbie’s mother. Yes,
Melanie and Barbie are half-siblings.

Norrie and Joe, hunting Melanie, run into Hunter who
tells them all about following their story and shows them his houndsofdiana.com
webpage. Hunter has a lot of geeky enthusiasm for the Dome while Norrie and Joe
are more interested in the food he had from the outside (unhealthy food! YAY!).
They have a geeky plan to track the egg. They make their egg tracker then poor
geeky Hunter is dumped so they can keep the egg secret. Of course, they have
this whole discussion where Phil, imprisoned below, can overhear

Junior goes home to find Pauline being all emotional over
the photo albums of all of Junior’s life she missed and Jim all happy to be a
family again. Though when she and Junior are alone, Pauline’s clear while she
wants to get out with Junior, she doesn’t see her and Jim getting back together
again. Junior’s also not nearly as forgiving as Pauline about Sam murdering
Angie. Pauline’s willingness to do so seems to drive Junior towards Big Jim.
When Pauline’s alone, the egg starts glowing and giving her a massive migraine.

Julia and Barbie start telling people about leaving
Chester’s Mill with Rebecca adding that Winter is Coming to encourage people to
leave. One agrees, the other decides to consult Jim because the guy who wanted
to kill them all with a plague is a much better source. For added fun Jim
decides to join because he wants to be part of the plan.

They argue, Jim doesn’t think that people will detain the 2,000 residents of
Chester’s Mill (for once I agree with Jim – not because I don’t think such a
detention couldn’t happen, but because this private company is doing this
AGAINST the government knowing, not with their consent). Jim also insists on
being the one to negotiate because he was elected (uh, not under these terms he
wasn’t). Barbie’s willing to go with this because they can use Pauline and Junior
against him

I think they’re trusting Barbie to care about other people which is never ever
a good thing.

Junior has decided to hunt down Sam for killing Angie –
and then letting Junior think he’d blacked out and done it. Yeah an apology
does seem a little lacking next to that. Rather than simply killing Sam and
removing an excess character Junior decides to punch him repeatedly while
demanding he fight back.

Angie – hallucination, resurrection, vampire, zombie, I don’t
know – shows up to stop Junior killing him. Sam has to live for REASONS. Junior
is devastated because he killed his precious! Sorta!Dead!Angie is not impressed
that her depraved stalker and kidnapper is claiming undying love. Non-murder
message delivered, Angie vanishes.

Jim goes to tell the good news to Pauline, but she has a
vision about a screaming egg and the end of everything which doesn’t bode well.
He tries to calm her down and she threatens him with a knife – before the
vision pain stops her. Jim decides to lock her in to “keep her safe” even as
she begs him not to.

And Jim hears the egg – and goes to find it, glowing away
in his bunker. When he tries to touch it, it slams him against a wall. There’s
no way he’s dead alas.

Barbie and Julia angst about their plan – and Melanie is
still on the fence about giving up the egg. But at least Julia’s happy with Jim
going first and being nabbed by Acteon. And she already borrows angst about the
future of the pair of them on the outside.

Joe and Norrie find the egg, screaming away. It calms
down as soon as Norrie picks it up. Which is when Jim wakes up and kidnaps them
and the egg at gun point. Off to the school where Hunter is lurking around
trying to conjure a wifi signal with sheer force of will.

They go to the great big chasm of doom – and throw the
egg in.

Earthquake – the Dome is pissed. Lots of chaos. Melanie collapses, Phil
escapes, lots of people are scared, Pauline is creepy. They get Melanie to Sam
for some quick emergency first aid and leave her with Sam and Junior.

Jim goes to Pauline who tells him that her visions
stopped when the earthquake started. She’s really not happy about this or what
Jim did to the egg.

At the school where Phil was locked up (for reasons), Phil makes a dash for
freedom. Barbie and Julia chase him but he jumps down the cavern. The cavern
that now has a bottom – a spiky bottom. Phil is dead. Without the egg there’s
no way out.

Hey Rebecca gets to read the “stay tuned for next episode”
spiel – did they realise how few lines she had?

They’ve found a way out of the Dome “we can only tell
people we trust”. Seriously? Why not tell everyone, form an orderly queue and
get the hell out. What do you think the nefarious will do with this
information? Except, maybe, KEEP IT A SECRET?

Could people die going back? Maybe, maybe – but how is
that on Julia and Barbie? I haven’t seen many children in this town (oddly) all
these grown adults can make their own decisions.

And, again, I have to demand why anyone would think the
Dome is benevolent. Julia has always believed the dome was there to protect
them… why? No, really, why? Give me one reason, one single reason, why we
should believe any kind of benevolence on the dome’s part? Why should we even
think it is neutral? It is holding you prisoner and occasionally throwing
random events that try to kill people at you – WHY IS THIS PROTECTION?

Do we have any reason why Acteon energy would care about the townsfolk? Or any
reason why, when they had the egg, they wouldn’t be able to imprison everyone
in town if they wanted to? Why not just lead the whole town out, have them all
appear in the playground and see how they manage to keep that secret!

I do admit I love that Hunter called his anti-Acteon
group “hounds of Diana”. Nifty mythology shout out

Even dead, Angie is a constant plot device for men who abused her – Sam, Junior
and Jim. But I do love that Angie did call out Junior’s claims of love. I was
getting so very tired of Junior being presented as the wounded party when Angie
died, of Junior being her champion, her avenger, her principle mourner – nice to
see the show at last remember what Junior did to her.